An Owl's Rise

After the tyrant rank lizard that had attacked Evelyn and her party had shaken off the stunning effect of Verrader's lighting, it immediately turned around and began fleeing.

It was not the type to engage in difficult battles and normally preyed on beasts that were completely unable to oppose it.

However, Evelyn's group were fast and difficult targets to hit, a and their teamwork made it impossible for the lizard to actually get a decent attack in.

There was also the fact that only the weakest members, Verrader and Aralee had been attacking it which the lizard had naturally noticed. If the others joined in, it was certain it would be whittled down despite its dense skin that repelled most attacks.

Never before had this tyrant rank lizard encountered beings that could use magic in the way that Evelyn's party could. All it and any of the other beasts it had encountered before could do was launch simple magic attacks without any real control.

At first the lizard had figured it could easily overpower the awakened rank owls and eat a few of them but a its greater power did was not enough for it to overcome the vast sham in their control over magic.

'It can certainly move pretty fast when it runs away.' Evelyn thought, impressed at how quickly the tyrant rank lizard had turned tail and run.

Unfortunately, for it, Otis who had just been watching swooped down quickly and brought the ground up like a wave on the ocean and blocked off the lizard's escape.

The tyrant rank beast smashed into the earth that Otis had been manipulating, and though it broke through, it began tumbling through the underbrush of the forest before slamming hard against one of the towering trees.

"Bylur, Rehni, we are joining on the attack now. It will be best if we finish it before it causes any more of a commotion trying to escape." Evelyn said, leading the charge towards the lizard that was sprawled out and in a momentary daze.

By the time Evelyn reached the tyrant rank lizard, I had managed to pull itself together and get back up, but was once again in the same position it had been trying to flee from.

In a desperate attempt to break through the lizard began expending huge amounts of its magical energy and sending out massive blasts of acid.

The forest around it began to melt under its mad spray of acid, and some of the large trees even began to crack and fall over.

Nevertheless, it was never going to hit the nimble owls hunting it with such an unfocused attack, and the moment it stopped to rest, Evelyn motioned for her companions to attack.

Bylur started off the second round of their battle, pelting the lizard with heavy snowfall.

The snow itself did not do any damage, but the lizard was weak tot eh sudden drop in temperature despite being a tyrant rank beast. It was still cold blooded and felt tis body rapidly beginning to cool and slow down.

It tried to get away again, but there was no way it could now that its movements were becoming sluggish.

If the lizard had only known how to manipulate its magical energy and put up a barrier around itself this strategy would have been ineffective, but it had nowhere near that level of control. Having lived tis entire life without once practicing and only relying on its natural abilities.

Once the tyrant rank lizard had started to become slower and it was running lower on magical energy, Evelyn and Rehni grouped up together and launched a powerful combo attack.

Rehni created a giant screw that was ten meters long and two meters thick and began rotating it around.

When she felt like she could no longer keep control over its momentum she launched it and Evelyn increased its weight with her gravity magic and sent the giant metal screw falling down on the lizard like a meteor.

The attack had been aimed at the beast's center of mass, but when it hit, plunged into its left side at the edge of its body.

Naturally the lizard had attempted to leap out of the way of Rehni and Evelyn's attack, however, thanks to Bylur lowering its body temperature and a well-timed lighting strike by Verrader, the lizard had been unable to completely avoid the attack even when it had been able to see it coming well in advance.

Now the lizard had its body screwed into the ground and it was temporarily unable to move at all.

Frantically the lizard tried releasing acid all around tis body to melt away the metal screw, but without any way to control the acid this was going to take it at least a dozen seconds. Time that it did not have.

With their target immobilized, Evelyn and her party were able to maneuver around the lizard anyway they liked and launch attacks it had no chance to dodge.

By the time the lizard had decided to rip the screw out of the ground rather than melt it, the beast was already a bloody mess.

'Time for the finishing blow.' Evelyn thought, before calling both of her siblings over to her.

She wanted to try a move they had practiced a couple of times together, but found no real success at executing in the past.

When they had attempted this attack in training it had always failed and Evelyn attributed it to Verrader lacking control, but it was actually more to do with his unwillingness to cooperate.

Things had changed now though, and her brother and her had come to an understanding and shed off their past resentment.

"Sister are you sure that we should be attempting this now?" Aralee asked, her tone betraying her concern.

"Yes, we have weakened our prey and need to deliver a powerful attack to end it. Certainly, we will win even if we just continue to slowly whittle it down, but that will ruin more of its materials and this is a rare chance for us to take down a tyrant rank beast. I want to do as little damage to its body as possible." Evelyn said.

If she simply wanted to kill it she could have used her heavenly flame, but this would have burned a large portion of its body into ash. Instead, her goal was to use wind magic deliver a clean cut at a vital point.

Under Evelyn's direction, she and her siblings began spinning around together and bring forth a greater amount of wind than any one of them could muster on their own.

Soon the power of the attack they had created tighter matched that of a tyrant rank beast.

'This is definitely our limit.' Evelyn thought, seeing that Verrader and Aralee were beginning to lose control. Trying to build up their combined attack any longer would only end in failure, so Evelyn took control and launched the massive wind blade they had created.

Like a guillotine falling down, the twenty-meter-long wind blade that was vibrating like a chainsaw slammed into the neck of the tyrant rank lizard and sliced deep into its flesh.

When everything settled down, Evelyn could only frown, since the attack had not been as potent as she had hoped.

The powerful wind blade had stopped at the spine of the tyrant rank lizard and only cut in about a tenth of the way through.

Evelyn had initially been aiming to cleave the beast's head clean off, but the unpolished attack by her and her siblings was only able to go so far.

Of course the tyrant ranks lizard was now gushing blood out of its neck and it was only a matter of time before it died. But the over a century old beast was tough and now that it felt cornered it started fighting with wild abandon.

It would throw its body directly into the way of attacks coming at it in an attempt to kill any of the owls that had hurt it, now that it no longer cared if it survived.

This reckless way of fighting forced Evelyn and her party onto the defensive for a few minutes, but the tyrant rank lizard soon exhausted itself.

Relentlessly, Evelyn kept attacking the huge gash in the lizard's neck and the others followed suit.

Eventually one of Rehni's attacks broke the tyrant rank lizard's spine and it fell over with a heavy thud onto the ground.

With its spine severed even a tyrant rank beast could not move, yet despite its injured the lizard had not died yet.

'Damn, tyrant ranks really are in another league when it comes to durability. I cannot even image still being alive after taking that much damage.' Evelyn thought, seeing how their enemy still would not die.

In the end it took them another five minutes of concentrated attacks to fully separate the lizard's head from its body, and only then did it finally breath its last breath and die.